Sharing best practices for Public Financial Management System

Oct 2022

Creating comprehensive learning tool on effective Public Finance Management reforms and blueprint of best practices for good governance
COUNTRY: Slovakia

PARTNER: World Bank

AREA OF EXPERTISE: Public Finance Management

YEAR: 2017-18

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The Public Finance Management (PFM) reforms in Slovakia which substantially elevated the country’s performance serve as a useful example for public finance professionals and government officials. However, there was no way for policy makers in other countries to easily access the learnings from this process and use them to implement similar reforms in their own countries. There was a need to create a practical learning platform to enable others to learn from effective financial reforms, such as the Slovakia case study, as a foundation for developing and evaluating PFM reform programs in their own countries.

OUR APPROACH

The learnings were made accessible through designing a comprehensive and interactive e-learning course that allowed for diverse audiences to learn at their own pace, access required knowledge and equips individuals to tackle development challenges Swaniti worked closely with the World Bank, wherein we developed the content to structure six modules covering areas such as macro-fiscal forecasting, Integrated Financial Management Information System, cash and debt management, public sector accounting and reporting, budgeting and public internal financial control etc. The reforms in Slovakia were detailed in this course as a representative model.

As the course addresses an internationally diverse audience, the team worked on enhancing the process of cross learning by incorporating seminars within the learning tool to encourage discussion and including measures to monitor and judge the efficacy of the platform through reports. Further, in addition to key stone exercises, the course had mechanisms of evaluation by concluding each module with a set of questions and quizzes to assess learning and measure progress.

IMPACT

The specialised and advanced course adequately suited the needs of bureaucrats, public finance professionals, government officials and professionals in the field of education and allowed them to extensively explore the dynamic and diverse facets of PFM through presenting the complex nature of the PFM reforms in a practical manner. Further, the content provided gave them the opportunity to form a basis for their understanding and the potential to accordingly remodel public financial management systems in their own countries.